Thomas L. Friedman on Secretary of Defense James Mattis:
[T]he only one who has not been infected by Trump’s metastasizing ethical cancer, the only one who has not visibly lied on Trump’s behalf, and who can still put some fear into Trump.
It’s hopeless. No one will stand up to the big bully.
Oswalt kicks off his latest Netflix special with hilarious Trump jokes. His interactions with the audience members were also entertaining. The riveting part of Annihilation is when he talks about his deceased wife and how he dealt with his daughter during the difficult time. He closes out the heartrending show with a quote from his wife: “It’s chaos. Be kind.”
In one particularly graphic example, Jones claims she witnessed Kelly urinating on two women while she and the women were in the middle of a sex act with the singer. “It was just a game for him,” she says. “He just went back and forth [on them] when he was peeing and told [another girlfriend] to clean it up afterwards. That was the worst that I’ve ever seen.”
Damn!
Tôi cảm kích em rất nhiều. Tôi cảm kích sự đảm đang và ân cần em dành cho con cái. Tôi cảm kích sự chăm chỉ của em dành cho sự nghiệp và cho gia đình. Tôi cảm kích những việc em làm cho chồng. Và tôi cảm kích nhất là lòng tốt của em.
Em đối xử chu đáo với những người xung quanh. Em không tranh đua hay ganh ghét ai. Người ta tính toán với em, em vẫn không để trong lòng. Giống mẹ em, em không nói xấu người khác. Với một số người thì việc làm này rất khó. Có người thích nói xấu người khác đến nỗi tôi nghĩ lúc không có mặt tôi họ sẽ moi tôi ra nói xấu. Nên giờ tôi sợ nhất là nghe người này nói xấu người nọ. Có cái gì tốt thì nói để học hỏi còn xấu thì tự mình hiểu là đủ rồi. Không cần phải kể lể.
Dường như ganh ghét thường đi chung với đâm thọc. Có ganh ghét mới đâm ra thọc vô. Tôi cảm kích bởi em không phải là người ganh tỵ hoặc đua đòi. Hãy giữ lấy những tính tình tốt đẹp đó nhé. Tôi cần học từ em rất nhiều.
In Virginia, Ed Gillespie, a former Republican National Committee chairman and counselor to “compassionate conservative” George W. Bush, is attacking his Democratic opponent for governor, Ralph Northam, for being too sympathetic to immigrants and too unsympathetic to Confederate monuments. One particularly incendiary commercial accuses Northam of “increasing the threat of MS-13,” a drug gang from El Salvador that is evoked with pictures of tattooed gang-bangers who actually belong to a rival outfit. Gillespie’s tendentious reasoning? As lieutenant governor, Northam voted against a bill in Virginia’s Senate that would have prohibited the establishment of any “sanctuary cities,” even though Virginia does not have any such cities. MS-13 has long been a favorite Trump target, symbolizing the supposed menace of Latino immigration.
Chip Kidd is a prolific graphic designer and Book Two showcases an extensive collection of his work in the last decade. Most of his works are book jackets and cover designs, but they cover a wide range. From poetry to novel to comic to non-fiction, his designs are impressive and inspiring. I am glad that the rise of e-books has not affected his work.
Dani Shapiro’s part memoir part advice on writing reveals how she became a writer and her writing process. Growing up as the only child of older parents who are observant Jews, she spent most of time in the Sabbath reading or writing. Although I have not read any of Shapiro’s book, I have always interested in learning about a writer’s process. In Shapiro’s case, the level of concentration to just write appeals to me. I don’t plan on becoming a writer either, but I enjoyed reading how writers still writing.
Xuân, being sick, sucks the life out of my wife. He clings to her twenty four seven. He cries and whines and wakes up every hour at night. I have been miserable myself from a cold.
Yesterday we decided to go to Six Flags to get some fresh air. On the way, I asked my wife, “Do you still love us?” Her respond was, “No, I love no one but myself.” Đạo and Đán was a bit sad. Đán said, “That means you hate us.” I said, “No, she loves you guys more than me.” She said to the boys, “I love you more if you don’t make me yell.” I thought to myself, “I don’t make you yell. I just make you scream.”
I held my joke because I didn’t know she was in the right mood for it. I didn’t want to get yell at.
After more than two months without a smartphone, I am now using Google Pixel 2. I have always been an Apple fanatic. Unfortunately the latest iPhones are way too expensive for me. The iPhone 8 is $700 and 8 Plus is $800. The iPhone X is over a grant. It’s not that I can’t effort it—since George Mason gives me a stipend each month for work related usage. I just can’t spend $700 to $1,000 for a phone.
The bigger disappointment for me, however, is Apple’s design. Apple’s user interface and user experience have not been too exciting. With each iOS update, the software sucks up so much battery. Google, on the other hand, has stepped up its design; therefore, I wanted to give it a shot.
The new Pixel 2 with 64GB Memory started out at $650 and Best Buy has a $100 discount. Google also threw in a Google Home Mini, which is $50, so I thought it was a good deal. In addition, I prefer small screen over big screen. $550 or $23 a month is still a lot, but I can live with that.
The switch was quite painless since I already have a Gmail account. With the contacts, I just export them to vCard and import them into my Google Contact. I only use a few apps so re-downloading them was not so bad. Podcast is the only thing that I missed from Apple. I am now using Play Music, but most podcasts, Fresh Air in particular, aren’t on Play Music yet. Google needs to catch up on this. Other than that, I am impressed with Google’s design. The screen is fantastic for reading. Typography is stunning.
The battery is also great. I only used like 25% for an entire day. To be fair, I tried to limit my phone usage as much as possible. Two months without a phone felt great even though at times I did wish I have it to call my mom or my wife. Luckily, I haven’t have any issue at work that required a phone. Our server has been performing well, but I do need to monitor it just in case.
For my limited usage, Pixel 2 does seem like a luxury, but what the heck. As for the Google Home Mini, the kids are having fun with it. They have been asking her all kind of questions. Đạo asked her how many books are there in the world and what is the biggest Lego ever built? She actually had an answer for each of them. He even asked her some mathematic questions and he figured that she could help him do his homework. I don’t think I would have bought Google Home Mini, but it is a nice complementary to the Pixel 2.
Nguyễn Thanh Việt came to the U.S. when he was four. I left Vietnam when I was twelve. We are both refugee. Yet neither of us has any idea about the war. He explored the subject through novels and movies. I learned about it through Asia Entertainment, a Vietnamese music production that released documentary and music video about the war. Its perspective is mostly from the Republic of Vietnam.
In writing this book, Nguyễn returned to the homeland to visit war-related places and museums, which are now mostly tourist attractions. Like him, I went into Vịnh Mốc tunnels and paid Hồ Chí Minh’s body a visit. From a refugee perspective, Nguyễn offers a fair and balance analysis of the war. He draws his studies from literature, film, and art, which are kind of odd for a nonfiction book. I wonder why he hadn’t studied Vietnamese music. We must have thousands of songs about the war. Nguyễn’s assessment on identity resonates with me:
Having carried ourselves over, or been brought over, from the other side—we Gooks, we goo-goos, we slopes, we dinks, we zipperheads, we slant-eyes, we yellow ones, we brown ones, we Japs, we Chinks, we ragheads, we sand niggers, we Orientals, we who cannot be distinguished between ourselves because we all look alike—we know that the condition of our being and our self-representation is that we are both ourselves and others. We are never without identity and never without ideology, whether we like it or not, whether we acknowledge it or not. Those people who believe themselves to be beyond identity and ideology will, sooner or later, charge us with identity and ideology if we dare to commit that most unnatural act of speaking up and out. (p.63)
He was lucky that no one had ever called him these names to his face. As a kid, I was called Ching Chong and chink even though I am not Chinese. Then again, we all look alike.
A compelling and beautiful read if you don’t mind Nguyễn’s academic writing style.